I think its more of a price point issue, $5 & 600.00 is more than anyone expected. The blue-ray drive is whats driving up the price but eventually those drives will come down along with all the other components in the box, look at how much the xbox and PS2 costs now compared to their launch prices.

People with HDMI sets will pay the higher price for the HDMI output and people that dont have it wont. The xbox 360 has a price point advantage now but the HD-DVD drive that will be availiable later will make it just as expensive as the PS3.

If blue-ray HD movies are going to be your thing the PS3 might be a bargain if you play games too.

Cliff notes: the lower model does not include HDMI outputs yet, meaning that in a couple of years when movie copyright protections kick in, the lower model will not be able to output Blu-Ray movies in true high-definition of 1080p (instead it will be halved at 540p).

Copyright protections include the mandatory use of a digital line such as HDMI.

sony tends to force you to buy their own accessories too. remember when their pro duo stick just came out to be used with their cameras and there was no alternative.

im using a sony laptop and there's no way to get to the heat sink to clean the dust off without taking the laptop apart. :mad:

but i admit that their products are nice. trinitrons and xbrite screens.

Sony is the king of proprietary formats. Not just their memory sticks, but UMD for the PSP (and UMD movies... ha!).

That aside, I think that Sony isn't as doomed as people think. More than just graphics, you need to have good content, and Sony still has clout to get good content.

Let us not forget of course that the world is bigger than the US, and the PS franchise is considerably more popular than Xbox in Japan.

But certainly the crippled model seems so crippled as to say that Sony might as well just release only the $599 unit -- it's clear that they're going to push as many people (myself included) into completely ignoring the $499 unit.

i'll bet you any amount of money that even they cranked up the price to $999 and only sold you a PS2 with PS3 badge on it, there would still be tens of thousands of maniacs lined up in front of all electronic stores to get their favorite console. people are crazy.